BLOOD TIES AND COTTON SHEETS

The silence in the room stretched until it felt like a physical weight pressing against my chest. Dominic Rossi did not blink. His eyes, a startling, glacial blue against the fever-flush of his skin, locked onto mine with a predator’s calculation. For a man who had lost enough blood to kill a lesser human, his gaze held enough lethal promise to make my instincts scream at me to run. But the eviction notice in my pocket was a heavier anchor than my fear.

"I don't repeat myself," he grated out, the words scraping against his parched throat. He shifted, his left hand gripping the mahogany headboard as if to haul himself up, but the movement tore a jagged groan from his lips. The pristine white sheets pooled at his waist, newly stained with fresh, blooming crimson.

"Neither do I," I said, my voice steady despite the erratic hammering of my heart. I kicked my duffel bag closer to the bed and unzipped it. "You’re bleeding through the secondary dressing, your temperature is likely pushing a hundred and three, and if that infection enters your bloodstream, all the money in this fortress won't buy you another week on earth."

I walked toward him, snapping a pair of latex gloves onto my hands. He tracked my movements, his jaw tight. "If you touch me, I'll break your arm."

"One of your previous nurses already warned me about your bedside manner," I replied, reaching for the surgical scissors in my kit. "But I spent the last three years in downtown trauma wrangling meth addicts who hit harder than you do right now. Lie still."

Before he could react, I pressed a firm hand against his uninjured shoulder, using my leverage to pin him to the mattress. He gasped, the fight draining from his muscles as a wave of pain overtook his stubbornness. As I cut away the ruined bandages, the metallic stench of infected blood hit the air. The wound was a mess—a jagged exit wound that had been poorly stitched, now festering.